


Twisted

by AvariciousAmbitions



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I'm not sorry, Kind of a slasher fic if you squint, Mild Gore, Murder, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 18:36:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20953052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvariciousAmbitions/pseuds/AvariciousAmbitions
Summary: Two months after the disappearance of The Farm, the town of Riverdale is fractured beyond repair. Forcing themselves to forget the past, they try their best to carry on as normal. And, in the case of The Farm, that means finding someone to blame. Betty has never thought twice about letting her former best friend take the fall for the horrors The Farm inflicted, until a phone call in the middle of the night reveals just how much darkness can fester in the minds of the forgotten.





	Twisted

**Author's Note:**

> I've never exactly been a fan of this show, but after the recent previews for season 4, I officially gave up. This is my attempt to get some petty, cathartic revenge on some of my least favourite characters.  
I'm not exactly expecting to win any friends with this, but oh well.

The call came late on a Sunday night. Betty hadn’t been expecting it - nobody called anyone in Riverdale anymore. In the weeks since the mysterious disappearance of The Farm, most of the town had retreated into some kind of self-imposed exile while they licked their wounds and felt sorry for themselves. Betty had been no exception, of course. Aside from helping in the investigation to find her mother, she spent most of her time alone in her room. Her father was dead, her mother and Polly were missing, and she was constantly answering various repetitive questions from various men in identical suits. So when she heard her phone ring around half an hour before midnight, she was at a loss for what to do. 

She knew the caller - she didn’t even need to see Cheryl’s name to recognise her own cousin’s phone number - but she had no idea what the hell Cheryl could possibly want from her at this kind of time. Despite being personally brainwashed by The Farm, Cheryl had seemed to recover surprisingly quickly. She and Toni had managed to escape with both of their kidneys intact, and neither of them had much of an issue reintegrating themselves into society. They had been welcomed back to Riverdale High with open arms, almost as if all that business with The Farm had never actually happened. And now that Cheryl considered Betty to be family, she had graciously decided to leave to Betty alone while she collected her thoughts, which was more than could be said for the other Farm survivor Betty knew. She shuddered slightly, pushing all thoughts of Kevin from her mind. He was irrelevant. If Cheryl was calling her this late, then something had to be wrong. She picked up the phone on the fifth ring and put the call on speaker.

“Cheryl?”

No reply. Just vague, ambient noise. At first, Betty thought she’d been pocket dialled. That would make the whole late-night call situation a little more reasonable. But as she listened closely, she heard the sound of panicked, shallow breathing.

“Cheryl?” She tried again, softer and with more urgency. Still no response, but this time there was the unmistakable sound of footsteps on a wooden floor. Then the smack of a fist against skin, and a high-pitched shriek. Cheryl’s voice, without question. The shriek dissolved into sobbing. Weak and desperate cries accompanied by the rustle of clothing.

“No!” Came Cheryl’s voice again, as a loud crash from the other end of the phone made Betty jump. Her body went cold, her mind paralysed with panic. She didn’t want to speak again in case she caught the attention of whoever else was in that room with Cheryl. As the crying faded, she heard Cheryl’s voice again.

“I’m at Thistlehouse.” She said, her voice barely a whisper. “He...he broke in while I was with Toni and-” 

A thud cut off the voice, and Cheryl screamed. A short, sudden cry of pain, followed by more sobs. The call cut off, leaving Betty sitting motionless on her bed. 

Tears filled her eyes. Her body refused to move. Her lungs wouldn’t take in any air. A chill crawled its way up her back, reaching out with icy tendrils until her whole body felt numb. She swallowed quickly, trying to get her throat to function. Cheryl was in danger, and by the sound of things, she was hurt. An image of Cheryl’s face - tear-streaked and smeared with blood - flashed across Betty’s mind. The shaky, dry voice. The panicked sobs. The screaming. Betty had to act fast, and she had to act now. Every moment wasted was a moment of Cheryl alone with some crazed, violent thug. And what about Toni? Cheryl had barely mentioned her. Had she already been too badly injured to help? Where was Nana Rose? There were far too many questions and no good answers. But they weren’t important. Cheryl had called Betty for a reason, and it was Betty’s responsibility to help her. She grabbed her phone and dialled the first number in her contacts. There was no way she could go into this alone. She needed reinforcements, and only one name came to mind.

“Jug?” She said before he even had a chance to respond. “Cheryl needs help.”

* * *

The door was open when they arrived. For a moment, Betty stood frozen, directly in the glow of the hallway light as it spilt out onto the pathway.

“You ok?” Jughead asked, resting a comforting hand on Betty’s shoulder. Betty sighed a long, shaky breath that sent goosebumps along her arms. “What if we’re too late?” She asked, her voice low. She clenched her hands into fists, nails digging into her palms. “What if he’s gone already?”

“Don’t think about it.” He said, tightening his grip. “If things go south, we call my dad.”

Betty nodded, stepping towards the door. She heard Jughead’s pocket knife flick out of its holder, and she stopped, turning to face him. “We’re not using that-”

“Unless we have to.” He finished. “I know. But if we’re dealing with some psycho in there, we need all the help we can get.”

“I don’t want you getting into any trouble.”

“We’re already in trouble, Betty. This  _ is  _ trouble.”

Betty took another breath, then held out her hand. Jughead took it, squeezing gently. She tried to push her fear aside, to think of Cheryl, and carry herself in on sheer adrenalin. They stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind them. From inside, there were no signs of any disturbance. Everything was neatly arranged, the carpets straight, the pictures hanging at exactly equal distances. The walls and floors were clean - no bloodstains, no marks or scuffs. They exchanged confused glances, moving slowly along the hallway. “Split up?” Betty whispered. Jughead shook his head.

“We don’t stand a chance of fighting this guy one on one.” He said, his tone measured.

“We’ll find her quicker if-”

“And we’re no use to her at all if we’re dead.” 

They exchanged a look, bracing themselves for whatever was to come. Without saying another word, they pushed open the door to the dining room.

They searched the bottom floor for ten minutes and found almost nothing. Every room was just as silent and pristine as Betty had come to expect from the Blossoms. For a moment, she began to wonder if this was all some trick, but as they came to the kitchen, that hope vanished from her mind. The room was a wreck. Drawers had been pulled out from the cabinets and tossed onto the floor, their contents spilling everywhere. Cupboards had been opened and ransacked, and some kind of glass bottle had smashed on the floor. Betty tried her best to navigate the mess of cutlery and kitchen utensils that covered the floor. “He was looking for something,” she said as she scanned the room. Jughead nodded in agreement. “And I think he found it.”

Betty followed his gaze to a knife block in a corner of the room. All the handles were neatly arranged, polished to a gleam. One slot, the biggest of the set, was empty. Betty’s throat went dry. “Upstairs.” She managed. Jughead didn’t respond, stepping cautiously over the shattered glass and heading back out into the hallway. Betty followed, her heart thundering in her chest. She felt frozen, unable to think straight as panic rushed through her mind. She tried her best to fight through the fear as they reached the foot of the stairs.

Before they could climb the first step, she felt an arm in her path. Jughead shushed her as he pointed down to the floor. Droplets of blood trailed up the stairs before them, almost unnoticeable at first, but growing as they reached the top of the stairs. Right on the landing, a great red smear streaked across the wall, covering what looked like a long gash down through the wallpaper. Betty had to cover her mouth to keep from screaming as Jughead raced up the stairs. She watched him tentatively touch the stain, her teeth clenched and her jaw tight.

“It’s still wet.” He said, his voice suddenly hollow. Without thinking, Betty rushed up to join him, paying no mind to the sound of her footsteps as she ran. They exchanged a panicked, desperate glance before silently coming to an agreement. Check the bedroom. Neither of them wanted to consider what they would find there. Neither of them wanted to think about the phone call, or the missing knife, or the bloodstains on the landing. Neither of them wanted to consider the fact that Nana Rose was still unaccounted for. They just ran, thinking of nothing but their feet on wood, and the sound of blood rushing in their ears. They reached the door to Cheryl and Toni’s room and Jughead slammed it open with a swift kick, his pocket knife firmly in his grip. The door crashed into the frame on the other side as they stepped inside, scanning the room with frantic eyes. Finally, as her gaze settled on the bed, the scream that had been building inside her finally tore itself from Betty’s chest, as her knees threatened to give way beneath her.

Toni Topaz lay crumpled in a heap on the bed, her clothes and bedsheets stained a dark, grisly red. Her face and arms were littered with ugly slashes and fresh bruises. Her hair was matted and dishevelled, her right eye almost swollen shut. Betty didn’t even need to get close to realise Toni wasn’t breathing. She fell back against the wall, the scream drawing everything out of her. Jughead, who had gone an almost sickly shade of white, let the knife slowly slip from his hand and clatter onto the floor. He crept his way up to the bed as if he were trying not to disturb the corpse on top of it. He brushed Toni’s hair out of her cold, lifeless face, and hopelessly felt her wrist for a pulse. Betty screwed up her eyes and looked away. She didn’t want to see that shake of the head, the confirmation that this was all real. Toni Topaz lay murdered right in front of them. Their friend, their classmate, was dead.

Aside from the body on the bed, the bedroom was in even worse a state than the kitchen. There were more smears of blood on the walls and deep grooves where the knife had dug into the panelling. Betty risked a look, shifting slightly closer. From here, she could see the main injury, a huge open slash across Toni’s right side, splitting across her back and stopping abruptly above her hip. The sight of the blood clotting around the torn flesh, and the thought of organs - likely a kidney - sliced in half sent Betty whirling back around. Her eyes stung with tears, and she could taste bile in her throat. She thought she was going to vomit, right there and then. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, like something directly from a horror movie. She was just about to make a break for the door and start screaming desperately for help when she heard Jughead’s voice again. “Betty…” 

She didn’t want to turn around. Deep down, she already knew exactly what she was going to see. That quiet, shaking voice. The slowness of his speech. It could only really mean one thing. She turned, walked up to Jughead’s side and, peering over the bed, saw Cheryl’s pale, motionless form.

Cheryl had somehow fared worse than Toni. The lacerations and stab wounds that covered her entire body seemed almost methodical. They were clean, cut slowly and deliberately by a patient hand. Only the wound that had slit her throat seemed rushed. The blood coated her neck and chest, some spilling onto her face and drying up in her hair. She seemed to have the same slash in her back as Toni, the kind that cut through veins and sliced through organs. Betty didn’t even have the strength to cry. She felt as if all her emotions had been sucked out of her. This time, she made the first move towards the body, crouching beside her cousin almost reverently. She didn’t want to touch her. It felt wrong somehow. Instead, she let the blood pooling beside Cheryl stain the front of her pant legs as she knelt quietly beside the body. Her eyes were still open, clear and unseeing. Betty took a moment to compose herself, to release a choked-up sob from somewhere deep within her, before closing Cheryl’s eyes with the light touch of her fingers. This was her cousin lying here, brutalised and discarded like an old rag doll. Betty almost couldn’t believe it. The last of the Blossom twins, murdered in her own bedroom. Betty rested her hand in Cheryl’s, trying to interlock their fingers in a moment of lost affection. All the years they could have been family had been snatched from her. It didn’t seem fair. 

“She’s still warm,” Betty whispered, not even realising she had spoken until the words left her mouth. If the body was still warm, then the killing must have been very recent. Perhaps the attacker may have only just escaped by the time she and Jughead had arrived. Whatever the truth, Betty didn’t much care. She was vaguely aware of the noise of Jughead’s phone, dialling his father’s number in all likelihood. But Betty didn’t want FP Jones here right now. She wanted to be alone, to have one final minute with her cousin before stepping back out into the chill of the night air. 

Then she heard something odd. There was a thud behind her, followed by an awful gasping sound. Somewhere between gagging and choking. She turned around and stood up, first seeing Jughead’s phone lying on the floor, still dialling FP’s number. Then Jughead fell against her, hard and fast. The weight of his suddenly limp form sent her stumbling off balance. She regained her composure, trying to stand her boyfriend up, but he fell to his knees with a loud thud. Then Betty felt the blood on her shirt. A horrible, cold realisation slammed into her chest. She could only stare in shock as Jughead fell onto his back. Blood spurted from the gaping slit in his neck, spilling onto his clothes, and the floor, and her shoes. He gagged, trying desperately to gasp for air. Betty wanted to help him, but her body was suddenly locked in place. Jughead’s back started arching as he convulsed, his neck and chest now soaked in his own blood. Then, just as quickly as he had fallen, the movements stopped. He slumped, his head lolling sideways. Dead. He was dead. Jughead Jones, her boyfriend, had just died right in front of her. Betty screamed. She screamed until her throat was red and raw. She clamped her hands over her mouth, but the screams still wouldn’t stop. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her face. Her breathing became panicked and frantic as she gasped desperately for air. She couldn't take her eyes off the body in front of her, yet she knew she had to look up. If she looked up, she would see who had done this. Toni’s and Cheryl’s and Jughead’s killer was standing right in front of her and yet she couldn’t look. Why wasn’t she looking? If she didn’t look, the killer would get her too. If she didn’t look, she was going to die right here and now. She barely even realised she was still screaming. Her throat was on fire. Her heart seemed to have completely stopped. Her mind was screaming at her. 

_ Look up look up look up look up look up. _

And then she did. She couldn’t even bear to say his name, and yet somehow it drifted from her gaping mouth, barely a whisper. 

“Kevin…”

He was wearing those same white clothes he had worn at The Farm, the colour obscured by bloodstains, some bright red and fresh, others older and already drying. He held a knife firmly in one hand, and with the other, he held Chery’s cracked phone. He was breathing slowly but deliberately as if trying to calm himself, but his body was completely still. His slick, brown hair was now dishevelled, and his face was covered in tiny cuts and bruises - a split lip, and what seemed like the start of a black eye. On the surface, he was still the same. Those soft green eyes, now piercing in the intensity of his stare, were still the same eyes she had seen almost every day since they were children. But beneath those eyes were harsh, dark circles, and around them was a pale face glistening with sweat, and splattered with the blood of her friends. Looking at him now, even her screams had left her. Her body and her mind seemed to be entirely separate things, and no matter how desperately she ordered her legs to move, and her mouth to scream, she remained still. Frozen in place by fear. Any move from him would send her bolting for the door, and yet any move from her would inevitably set him on her. They were locked in a deadly stalemate.

The silence was suddenly interrupted by FP’s voice on the other end of the phone.

“Hey, Jug? What’s going on? Where are you?” 

Kevin and Betty both turned their gazes to the phone. If Betty could grab it, she could scream for help, grab FP’s attention before Kevin went at her with the knife. If she tried, somehow got the element of surprise, then she could make it. The phone was just in front of her. She was closer.

But Kevin was faster. Cheryl’s phone clattered to the floor, discarded as he went for Jughead’s. It was in his hand before Betty could even reach out her arm, and with one swift motion, he hurled it against the wall. It shattered on impact, then clattered to the ground, lifeless. The brief disturbance had brought a new kind of easiness to his gait. His shoulders seemed more relaxed, his posture slackened a bit. If it weren’t for the bloodstained clothes and the three dead bodies in the room with them, they could easily have been chatting at school.

“Long time, no see,” Kevin said, his tone almost alarmingly casual. Betty just stared at him, unable to process all the thoughts screaming in her mind. Instinctively, she took a step back but nearly tripped over Chery’s leg. She shrieked, only barely regaining her balance. She knew full well that she was backing straight into a wall, yet for some reason, her legs kept moving. Anything to get her as far away from Kevin as she possibly could. Her attempts to escape only seemed to amuse him, as he slipped his now free hand into his pocket. “So you’re still not talking to me?” He asked in that conversational tone Betty was so used to, “I mean, I’m not surprised, but...you know. Disappointed.” He wiped the blood from the edge of the knife with his sleeve. Betty glanced to the open door. It was just within reach, but she doubted she could get much further than the top of the stairs before she was inevitably caught. As far as she could see, there was no way out.

“What do you want with me?” She asked, eventually. The words barely scraped out from her dry, aching throat. She hated that sound, so weak and pathetic. Like she was one moment away from weeping on her knees. Kevin tilted his head slightly. “From you?” There was a hint of confusion beneath that calm, measured voice. “I don’t want anything from you. Why the hell would you think-”

“You made Cheryl call me.” Betty cut in, pointing a shaking hand at the phone that lay on the floor. “You wanted to bring me here.”

He didn’t say anything in response. Betty felt a modicum of strength return to her, and she straightened up slightly. “You killed my boyfriend.” She said, anger beginning to replace the fear gnawing away at her. “You killed my cousin. You attack my friends and call me to their house in the middle of the night and you expect me to go along with your bullshit?”

The look of calm on Kevin’s face slowly faded, and a scowl settled over his mouth. “Betty, for once in your life can you not be so fucking self-centred.” His voice was suddenly low, almost menacing in its quietness. Betty found herself suddenly taken aback by the change. “What do you-”

“You know exactly what I mean!” He snapped, his voice suddenly rising to a yell. “Jesus fucking Christ, Betty, all you ever think about is yourself.” The hand in his pocket had balled itself into a fist, grabbing at the lining inside. 

“What the hell are you saying?” Betty shot back, her voice now matching his in volume. “After everything you’ve done recently, you want to call me selfish? After all that shit with The Farm?”

The grin returned to Kevin’s face, only this time there was something almost sinister to it. “Oh yeah, let’s talk about  _ that _ , shall we?” He scoffed as he took another step towards her. “Let’s talk about I was left completely alone to deal with being ditched by  _ another  _ boyfriend. Or about how I was ignored by the people who called themselves my best friends.”

Betty hadn’t even realised she’d been backing away, but her back suddenly collied with the far wall of the room. Kevin continued advancing towards her as he spoke, the kitchen knife still tightly in his grip. “Are you seriously so dense that you think this is  _ my  _ fault.”

He stopped moving, waiting for an answer. Betty couldn’t find one. He was too close to her. He’d barely have to step forward to plunge that knife right into her stomach and leave her for dead. She swallowed, settling on the only thing that came to her mind.

“You abandoned me. You left all of us for The Farm, and you didn’t even think about-” 

She barely even had a chance to finish her sentence before he struck her. His fist collided with her cheek and sent her staggering to one side, crying out in pain. As she tried to regain her balance he came at her again, this time with a blow directly to her jaw. Her head rocked and she collapsed painfully to the floor. As she looked up, she saw the tip of the knife pointing directly between her eyes. “Don’t even  _ try  _ with that, Betty.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “I am fucking done with being told how bad of a friend I am.” He kicked her directly in the stomach, and Betty doubled over in pain. The breath was knocked out of her. Her vision blurred with tears. “Do you have any idea what kind of place you left me in after The Farm?” He practically hissed as he bent over her. “I lost  _ everything.  _ I’d been lied to by people I thought I could trust. I had my fucking  _ kidney  _ stolen!” The next kick struck her in the face, and she screamed as she felt the crunch of her nose under his shoe. “And you still think I joined The Farm to spite you personally? Like this was all some big plot to bring you down? I did what I was told by people I thought wanted to help me! I didn’t do anything worse than Cheryl fucking Blosson, or her bitchy little girlfriend.” 

Betty tried to collect her thoughts. She felt blood pumping from her nose, and every time she tried to push herself up, her arms gave out and she fell back against the floor. She heard a deep breath before Kevin continued. 

“Do you know what being in a cult does to a person?” He asked, his voice calmer but unsettlingly quiet. “I mean, I know you don’t, but hear me out.” 

She felt something yanking at her hair as she was painfully pulled to her feet and shoved against the wall. “I was in a really bad place. I thought there wasn’t a single person in the goddamn world that gave a shit about me. My dad was too busy dealing with the divorce - which, by the way, nobody bothered to ask me how I felt about - my boyfriend is fucking MIA, and you were sitting around with those new friends of yours feeling sorry for yourselves. And yet somehow, after all that, you expected me to  _ apologise  _ to you?” He slammed Betty into the wall again, the back of her head colliding painfully with the wooden panelling. “Didn’t you ever think that leaving someone to take the blame for their own trauma might mess them up a little bit?” With each word, he yanked hard on her ponytail, and she shrieked in pain. “You left me for two  _ fucking  _ months to deal with this shit while Cheryl and Toni get to just carry on as normal?” He was screaming at her again. The calm had vanished, and now he seemed almost apoplectic with rage. His jaw was tight, his teeth clenched, as he jammed a hand against her throat. "That's why I'm doing this, Betty. Not to get anything from you. But to get you, and everyone else who gave me shit, out of my fucking head!" He pressed hard, cutting off her air. Betty tried desperately to gasp for breath, but nothing came. She still felt that burning anger, surrounded by the dead bodies of her friends. She still felt the fear as she stared at the tip of the kitchen knife. But his words seemed to hit too close to home. A new feeling, something she was completely unused to, began spreading in the pit of her stomach. Shame. Shame at the realisation that  _ she  _ had driven him to this. She had been the one who’d allowed Cheryl to torment Kevin that first week after The Farm left. She had been the one who hadn’t gotten involved when everyone else had started doing the same. The weight of it all, mourning, fearing for her life, brought a lump to the back of her throat. She tried to fight the tears, but they came in uncontrollable, fitful sobs. “I’m sorry.” She breathed, not really knowing what else there was to be said. The grip on her throat loosened, and she gasped for air. She couldn’t see Kevin’s expression for the tears in her eyes, but she heard the smile in his voice.

“I know.”

The next few moments came to her in brief flashes. She felt the pain of her head being slammed into Cheryl’s dressing table mirror and the shards of glass that fell over her body. She collapsed as warm blood began to run down her face. Then she felt the knife in her shoulder. A white-hot pain shot through her body, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. She felt it slowing being drawn out, then piercing her left knee. Then her stomach. Then her side. Then a long slice against her cheek. Each blow brought a new level of screaming from somewhere deep within her, but the noise barely registered. She began to feel cold. Her mind wanted nothing more than to drift away, but something was holding her back. When the pain was over, she watched the boy she had known since childhood take his blood-soaked clothes and toss them into a pile on the floor. She saw him bring out a bag stuffed with clothes, and change into one of his usual sweaters. She heard water running as he washed as much of the blood from his hands as he could. She was vaguely aware of the heat from the flames that burned the bloodied clothes and quickly spread across the wood-panelled house. But her body was too cold to take it in. She drew in what little breath she could, weak and shaking, as she heard the distant calls of a man she knew. FP Jones. Just too late. Betty felt her eyelids begin to close, and her body finally relax. The world faded away to nothing, and she was gone.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who thinks Kevin has any reason to apologise for what The Farm did to him can personally fight me. 
> 
> Inspired by MISSIO - Twisted  



End file.
